COUNSELLING, PSYCHOTHERAPY AND SUPERVISION IN WEST LONDON

Individual Counselling
Individual Psychotherapy
Individual Clinical Supervision
Group Clinical Supervision

MY APPROACH

Underpinning my approach is the importance of the relationship between therapist and client, or supervisor and therapist. So while trust takes time to establish in any relationship, I believe it is key to good counselling, psychotherapy and supervision.

Continuity, safety, professionalism, combined with integrity and warmth, are all important ingredients that help build the right conditions within which insights and change can occur.

HOW I WORK

Although I draw from a wide range of modalities or schools of thought (in other words an integrative approach), my work is under-pinned by working in a way that combines the intuitive and the analytic.

I tend to use the initial assessment as an opportunity to gather history and information on what you are looking to work on and change. It is also a chance to get a feel for whether we can work together. Both these will help me to evaluate whether I am the right therapist for you. The initial meeting is also an opportunity for you to get a feel for whether you would like to work with me.

In either counselling, psychotherapy or supervision, I am conscious of how building trust can take time, and am always respectful of the pace at which you need to work.

WHO I WORK WITH

I welcome working with women and men of all ages regardless of sexuality, cultural/religious background and nationality, and my experience covers a wide range of issues, including:

• General dissatisfaction with life, feeling stuck
• Relationship issues; inc. repeating the same patterns
• Self-esteem issues
• Work issues
• Men’s issues
• Women’s issues
• Sex and sexuality issues
• Depression
• Addiction
• Loss and bereavement
• Gay, lesbian and bisexual issues
• Life choices and indecision
• Stress and anxiety
• Anger
• Abuse
• Phobias
• Eating disorders
• Stuck creativity
• Spiritual crisis
• Difficulties arising from family life

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AREA OF SPECIALISM

I specialise in relationship and psychosexual issues, addictions, sexual compulsivity and sexual identity.

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AN INTEGRATIVE APPROACH

My overall training and approach is Integrative, which means that in practice I draw from a variety of modalities or schools of thought, incorporating them into the work when appropriate. To some extent the personality of the client will determine which modality or modalities are applied. For example, while one person may be more comfortable drawing images as a means of self-expression, another may be more comfortable using words, whilst another may be comfortable with both.

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PERSON CENTRED

Although I am not a person-centred counsellor/psychotherapist, I am person-centred in that the client is my focus, and my starting point. Wherever you are, or whatever you present, will provide the point from which the work will begin. Crucial to the person-centred model are the core conditions of accurate empathy, genuineness or congruence, warmth and unconditional positive regard which must be established in the relationship between client and therapist if the client is to move closer towards self-actualising, or becoming who they really are.

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PSYCHODYNAMIC

Derived from Freudian psychoanalysis, the psychodynamic model is not psychoanalysis! This approach explores the knowledge and theory of human behaviour and its motivation, whilst recognising the role of the unconscious and how it influences behaviour, which itself is determined by past experience, genetic inheritance and what is happening in the present. Here, insight is the tool by which what is unconscious is brought to consciousness, freeing you to make new choices.

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ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY

Developed from Jung’s revolutionary discoveries about the archetypal and mythical worlds and the Self, life is a dramatic story in which all our experiences take on meaning and can be described symbolically. In working with dreams and the creative imagination insights are gained from which healing and transformation become possible. This symbolic approach works with the indefinable, the intuitive and the imaginative, and provides a challenge to more literal ways of understanding ourselves and the world around us.

Here, the client is encouraged to own, accept and come to terms with aspects of their unconscious (or Shadow) which, if denied, can be potentially powerful and destructive. There is an attempt to bring more of the Shadow into the light of awareness so that greater integration and individuation can be made possible.

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THE TRANSPERSONAL

The transpersonal perspective proposes that, at our core, we humans are spiritual beings. There is no subscription to any religious creed, dogma or religion, but a belief that a spiritual approach to counselling and psychotherapy can: enable us to harness our longing to grow and unfold; help us own the more difficult aspects of ourselves instead of projecting them out on to other people or circumstances; allow us to recognise that it is often through crisis and suffering that positive transformation is made possible; teach us to tap an inner strength than enables us to take risks that encourage growth in our lives; help us find the meaning and purpose in our lives, and to enable us to develop the qualities we need to maximise our potential as spiritual beings.

To facilitate the transpersonal perspective clients are offered the opportunity to work with their creative imagination; with guided imagery, drawing, sub-personalities and visualisation techniques. Last, but by no means least, working with dreams may also play a part.

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GESTALT

Gestalt is a German word and loosely translated means ‘pattern’ or ‘form’, which when incomplete we can talk of in terms of unfinished business. The approach aims to help people become self-supportive, self-responsible through an awareness of what is going on in the self at any given moment in the ‘here-and-now’. Psychodrama and body awareness are key tools that support the approach.

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COGNITIVE BEHAVIOURAL THERAPY (CBT)

CBT is applied mostly to short-term solution-focussed counselling, and focuses on the adjustment of ‘thinking’ as a way of influencing behaviour. Negative thoughts and ‘self-talk’ are challenged using the techniques including use of imagination and the introduction of different ways of thinking.

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